A lot of my friends tell me about their favorite comfort songs or shows. Whenever they want to chill, they’ll throw on some Taylor Swift as they lay in bed. Maybe they stream “The Office” as background ambiance while they eat. I’m not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing to do, or that these specific pieces of media are of poor quality, but I’ve never really done that. I don’t usually turn on something just to have something on. When I’m eating food, I’ll usually just do that, and if I want to watch something, I’ll give it my full attention afterwards.
I think it’s a habit I picked up as a kid. My parents never let us have toys at the dinner table or watch T.V. while we ate. I guess that’s just carried over to my adult life. But I digress.
Finding comfort in chaos
Recently, my friends and I went on a trip to New York City for a week. We were staying in Brooklyn and had been doing a lot of walking. Our average mileage was about eight and a half each day.
On one of the last nights we were there, we had been hanging out in the apartment for a while and the night was waning away. Due to sore legs and empty wallets, the plan was to spend the rest of the day inside, talking and watching anime. It would have been fun, no doubt, but I wanted to soak in the city while I could. So, I decided to head into Manhattan and kick back at this cool, live jazz club we’d found a few days earlier.
The subway ride there was pretty long, so I grabbed my headphones and downloaded a handful of tracks on Spotify—mostly “witch house” music. It took about ten minutes for the subway to get there, and I squeezed myself onto an empty seat. Which reminds me of a thing I really like about New York. On the Metro, my left shoulder rubbed against a paint splattered Hanes sweater belonging to a man who just got off a long day of work, while my other shoulder was next to a purposefully distressed, black Rick Owens jacket. The radical diversity there is very evident.
“Sears Tower” on the subway
But the ride was long, so I threw on my headphones and queued up the track “Sears Tower” by SALEM, off of their Fires in Heaven album. It’s a slow starting song with reverberated vocals, distorted noise, and plush, yet forceful bass kicks. But each element, with the lulling droning in its background, foreshadows what the track holds.
A loud shriek, like a siren hidden in charcoal waters when lustful fishermen get brought into rocks, rips across both ears, tearing the thin, mesh veil that the beginning had draped. Synths with heavy weights buzz and shake the listeners body, gripping their shoulders like a manic meth addict and screaming, ‘Armageddon is near.’ The synths don’t literally say that, but the audience can feel their urgent message in the marrow of their bones.
My head leaned back against the white wall of the subway, and I started to figuratively drown under the enveloping wall of “Sears Tower’s” sound. On top of the synths, bass notes, high hats, and literal screams… chopped, skewed, and reverberated vocals laced themselves through the track like a basting stitch on a deconstructed Maison Margiela shirt.
I watched as blue lights from the tunnel streaked across the Metro’s glass like dissipating frost on a warm winter morning. SALEM’s “Sears Tower” expanded and filled my head like foam and rested a warm blanket over my body. It was the ultimate form of comfort.
the importance of Comfort Music
The Jazz club was cool, but my mind that night was still on the subway. It never got off. Now I better understand the importance of comfort media. It has the ability to sooth and numb; to fill up time and space with hopes of reassurance. “Sears Tower” by SALEM is my new late-night comforter.
You can find SALEM’s music on most all streaming platforms, such as: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc.
What are some of your favorite comfort songs?
